Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn Founder: It’s Time To Quit Your Job When You Feel This! Selling LinkedIn For $26 Billion Taught Me This About Life! Trump Is Going To Punish Me!

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
President Trump was threatening personal and political retaliation because I tried to help Harris get elected.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:05)
Do you think you'll be penalized?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:06)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:07)
And direct on you?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:08)
And direct to me.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:09)
You're not planning on leaving the US, are you?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:13)
Reid Hoffman is the co-founder of LinkedIn and one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, playing pivotal roles in the success of influential companies, including PayPal, Airbnb, Facebook and OpenAI.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:23)
And now he is a leading voice in AI, helping people utilize this new technology to empower themselves in their life and careers.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
You were part of what they call the PayPal Mafia, who went on to create Tesla, YouTube, Reddit, SpaceX, LinkedIn, and become multi-billionaires. And so I've got so many questions.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:40)
Let's do it.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:40)
What are the key factors of a great entrepreneur's mindset?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:43)
One is you have to understand that you don't get to an optimistic future by trying to avoid failure. When we started LinkedIn, everyone said this won't work. But just because you don't have 100% chances of succeeding doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it. But there's also a set of skills that are rare that you can actually teach to entrepreneurs that makes you much more likely to be successful. The first is...

**SPEAKER_2** (1:03)
And then, how do you know when to quit the job? What's your view on work-life balance? And if you were advising anyone to build wealth in 2025, what would you say?

**SPEAKER_1** (1:11)
Here's some simple tips. One is...

**SPEAKER_2** (1:13)
Reid, what is your take on AI?

**SPEAKER_1** (1:14)
It gives us superpowers. Now, there will be costs to it, but like electricity, it does electrocute people, but it's essential for human society.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:22)
And is there anything that the average person should be doing to capitalize on the opportunity that AI presents?

**SPEAKER_1** (1:26)
A hundred percent. This is what you're doing.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:28)
So, quick one before we get back to this episode, just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us. And this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm going to make to you. I'm going to do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can, now and into the future. We're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to, and we're going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about the show. Thank you. Thank you so much. Back to the episode.
Reid, as I read through your life, it's remarkable in, it's almost impossible that one individual could be involved in so many companies that have had such a big impact on society. But at the same time, someone be able to seemingly see the future over and over and over and over again. So because as I read through your life, I thought this can't be one individual, this can't be one lifetime. It begs the question to me, what is in your view the causal factors that set you up for such a life?

**SPEAKER_1** (2:49)
That's interesting, I've never been asked that question before.
Probably, it's a combination of the fact that my passion is, who are we as human beings and where are we going? So that's from a very young age. And I think I got it by reading science fiction. It's kind of like, what is the scope of humanity? Like, Isaac Asimov's foundation and this kind of stuff. And then I ended up growing up, I was born in the Stanford Hospital, I ended up growing up in Silicon Valley. And so I got the exposure to technology can change the world. And so focusing on thinking about kind of this intersection of humanity and technology. And of course, obviously, science fiction has some play to that, too. Although most of the technology in science fiction is just fiction, right? It's just like, we have wormholes and we do intergalactic travel. It's like, as far as we know, there is no such thing as wormholes for intergalactic travel, right? I mean, all current contemporary theory of physics would suggest that there isn't. I mean, there may be wormholes, but they're not for, you know, put your Star Trek spaceship in it and go somewhere. And then probably the other part of it is I played a lot of board games when I was a kid. And so it gave me a very deep sense of strategy. And so approaching life, yeah, exactly. Wow.